Mother-Daughter
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1377: They've never been able to really go out in public as mother and daughter until now, but with their secret out, there's nothing stopping them. - Sylvesters series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 64th cycle. Now cycle 65!_

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**"Mother-Daughter"  
Sue & Brittany  
Sylvesters series  
_(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)_**

They couldn't honestly remember the last time they had done something as simple as this. They couldn't remember the last time they had gone to the supermarket together, or anywhere else. Anything that would simply not be appropriate for a cheerleading coach and one of her cheerleaders to do together, they just wouldn't. For so many years, they had followed the rules of their secret, which had meant removing any number of normal activities a parent and child might perform together. Sue would shop alone, sometimes sending Brittany on errands. But anywhere they might have gone and been recognized together, they had to stay away.

Now that had all changed. Brittany was heading back to school, everyone knew… There would be no more hiding, and as much as it had taken them time to remind themselves they didn't have to hide anymore, now they were taking those first slow steps toward a normal life again… whatever that meant.

Brittany had been the one to ask if she could come along this time, and now here she was, pushing the cart while her mother filled it up. She had never really been part of this process, the food always just came to her house. Now she was discovering all these things they never got, and it might have been their most expensive market run of all time.

"You know we can't buy all of this every week. You've got enough here for two weeks, maybe three," Sue frowned at the load before her.

"I know," Brittany promised, leaning on the bar at the front of the cart, using her weight on it to push it forward.

"Careful," Sue warned her. She was better, for the most part, but she knew her mother wasn't going to just come off her worries in a flash. This wasn't the barking Coach Sylvester she was dealing with.

Brittany had been distracted. She could see a girl from school further up the aisle, also with her mother. The girl had spotted the two of them coming up the opposite way, and she had started whispering to her mother, who looked back with this odd sort of frowning look.

"Why is she looking at us like that?" Brittany asked her mother. Sue turned to look, and when they were caught looking, the other pair had quickly averted their eyes. Her mother's face had turned sour so fast, Brittany hadn't seen it coming.

"Stay here," Sue told her before marching up the aisle. Sue Sylvester could show no problem at all with causing a scene, but she didn't do it, so much so that Brittany couldn't make out anything that was being said. All she could do was interpret what she saw.

At first when Sue had come up to the pair, they had pretended like they hadn't been doing exactly what they were doing, but the more Sue spoke to them, the harder it got to play innocent. Finally the other mother had turned to face her, raising her chin in the same way she'd had it earlier. Whatever she'd said, even without seeing her mother's face, she knew it was bad. When her mother had replied back, the other woman had looked as though she was literally shrinking in front of Sue Sylvester. Eventually they had retreated, turned their cart around and wheeled out of sight. Sue straightened up her track suit jacket, turned around and walked back to her daughter.

"What happened?"

"It's nothing to concern yourself with, come on, let's keep going."

"No, I want to know," she pleaded. Sue wasn't saying anything, but Brittany could see the side of her face; she looked almost sad.

"That woman over there just felt I should know what a terrible mother I was, that I should be ashamed for the way I've raised you." Brittany felt cold all at once.

"She said that?"

"That's the clean and concise version of it, yes," Sue explained. They were silent for a moment, the only sound around them being a cashier on the PA asking for a price check.

"I don't think you are, you know? A terrible mother? I think you're the best one there is," she gave a shy smile, and it brought one back to her mother's face.

"You do?" Sue asked.

"I think you have to be, for what you had to do, to keep us the way we are," Brittany replied. "There were some times where I didn't really get it, but I do now. Please, don't let her make you think you were wrong." Brittany thought her mother might cry.

"I'm not going to," she promised. "I've got the best girl out there," she tapped Brittany's face. "She might have a shorter leg to stand on if she knew half of the things I've caught her precious princess do over the years," she shook her head.

"Mom," Brittany warned.

"I'm not going to," Sue promised. "It won't always be like this," she went on. "They'll get over it."

"It is kind of weird though, isn't it? Doing all this?" Brittany indicated the cart. "Everything's so different now, what if we have to change?"

"We're not going to change," Sue insisted. "It's just going to be about… being more honest," she explained. Brittany liked that idea. "Come on, let's finish this. The longer this takes, the hungrier we'll get, and that is just dangerous while grocery shopping, you end up buying half the store."

"You must have been really hungry, that time you bought all those cakes," Brittany tried to stifle her laugh.

"It was almost Christmas, it was appropriate," Sue defended herself.

"It was October," Brittany recalled.

"Halloween, then."

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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